Sir Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation after the European Union moved to blacklist the force over its violent crackdown on anti-government protests.
France threw its support behind the proposal on Wednesday night, following similar calls from Germany, Italy and Spain, clearing the way for a formal EU designation next week.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, said the move would place the IRGC “on the same footing” as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic State.
“If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as terrorists,” she said.
The EU has proscribed e Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group
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Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said the repression could not go unanswered.
He said: “There can be no impunity.
“The unsustainable repression of the peaceful uprising of the Iranian people cannot go unanswered. Their unprecedented courage in the face of indiscriminate violence cannot be in vain.”
Although the designation is not expected to sever diplomatic relations with Tehran, officials believe it will have significant political repercussions in London.
A source close to the discussions said: “I think the EU’s decision will make it very difficult for the UK to resist.”
Labour had pledged in opposition to ban the IRGC, but in government decided against using existing terrorism legislation after being advised it was poorly suited to organisations that form part of a foreign state.
The Home Office has instead promised new powers to target hostile state bodies, though there is no timetable for legislation.
Proposed measures include “statutory alert and liability threat notices”, allowing police to seize passports and criminalise support for designated foreign agencies.
Canada and Sweden have already proscribed the IRGC, while the US designated it a terrorist organisation in 2019, adding to the pressure on the UK to follow suit.
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Labour had pledged in opposition to ban the force, but has so far decided against it in Government
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As part of their sanctions, the EU has targeted hundreds of Iranian officials, including all senior IRGC commanders, making the blacklisting largely symbolic but politically potent.
Further sanctions are expected to be agreed in Brussels this week against Iranian figures linked to human rights abuses and the supply of weapons to Russia.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is considered the elite of Iran’s armed forces, with an estimated 640,000 personnel, including around 450,000 Basij paramilitary reservists, alongside millions of volunteers.
Beyond its military role, the corps exerts sweeping influence over Iran’s economy and oversees the country’s internal security apparatus, making it central to the regime’s grip on power.
It has been at the heart of Iran’s brutal response to weeks of mass protests, a crackdown that monitors say has killed at least 6,200 people, with fears the true death toll is far higher.
The violence has intensified calls across Europe for the force to be formally designated a terrorist organisation.
Iranian opposition figures said the EU’s move was long overdue. Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the IRGC was “the regime’s main tool of repression and the export of terrorism and war”.
He added that its designation as a terrorist organisation was “at least three decades overdue”.
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